


Choice

by Cheree_Cargill



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Difficult Decisions, F/M, Post-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Unplanned Pregnancy, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-16 04:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20192341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheree_Cargill/pseuds/Cheree_Cargill
Summary: The Rebels have had to evacuate Hoth base and have fled when the Empire attacks.  It is now several months later and Leia has discovered she is pregnant, following a tryst with Han before they reached Bespin.  Now she has to make a heart-breaking decision -- keep her baby and endanger the rebels should the Imperials find them again, or abort Han's child.  Maybe, just maybe, there is a solution that involves neither.





	Choice

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: The Star Wars characters are the property of 20th Century Fox, Disney, and any other legal copyright owner. The story is the creation and property of Cheree Cargill and is copyright (c) 1984 by Cheree Cargill. Originally published in "Far Realms #6", 1984, edited by Jeanine Hennig.

Leia sat huddled in on herself, trying hard to keep her brimming tears from falling. Rieeken waited patiently for her answer, knowing the pain his inquiry was causing her.

"Don't ask this of me," she said at last, with difficulty. "Anything else, but please, not this."

"It's for the good of the rebellion, Your Highness," Rieeken answered gently. "And for your good, too."

She squeezed her eyes shut and the tears at last ran down her cheeks. "No! Don't you see? It's all I have left."

Rieeken knelt before her and grasped her shoulders. "Leia, I was your father's aide for nearly twenty years. You are like my own child. I wouldn't ask this of you if I didn't think that it was for the best."

Leia struck out at him, blinded by her tears and her fury, and pummeled at him ineffectually for a minute before collapsing in his arms, sobbing. The older man held her until she managed to bring her tears under control, then sat close beside her, one arm still around her trembling shoulders.

She wiped her tears away, leaving her face still wet and blotchy. Unable to look at him, she said in a shaky voice, "I just can't ... do this. Han may be ... well, he may never..." She turned her face up to the general, her expression tortured. "I've lost my family, I've lost my home, I may have lost Han. Don't ask me to lose our child, as well."

Rieeken sighed heavily. "Leia, have you thought about this? I mean, really thought about it? How many bases have we had to abandon in the past three years? How often have we barely gotten out in time? It's dangerous for you, carrying a baby now. It's dangerous for all of us, worrying for you and, later, a child here. Have you thought about how this will affect your loyalties and decisionmaking? You'll always have your child in your thoughts when you have a difficult decision to make, always be worried that she will be safe, always worry about protecting her." Leia had hung her head in anguish. "Honey, if it were any other time, any other place, I'd be the first to dance in jubilation. But please, Leia ... think hard about what you're doing."

Giving her shoulders a reassuring squeeze, the Alderaani general rose and quietly left Leia's quarters, leaving her in a miserable little bundle on the bed. Once again, tears welled up and this time she let them flow unheeded, too grief-stricken at the choice she had to make to care.

Rieeken was right. A guerilla camp, always on the run, was no place to bear and bring up a child. She couldn't function as efficiently, as coldly as she had before, couldn't be the torch-bearing Princess of Alderaan, couldn't be the steel-hard battle commander she had been before an arrogant, acid tongued Corellian came into her life.

The thought pf her Corellian brought a fresh spasm of grief to her aching body. It had been over two lunars since she had impotently watched Boba Fett's ship blast away from Cloud City. Lando and Chewie had been delayed in their pursuit until they could get Luke and Leia safely back to the Alliance rendezvous point and planned to leave soon for Tatooine, thinking it the most likely place to begin their search for Han.

Meanwhile, the stirrings of life had begun in Leia Organa: a daughter, the med-droids said. Han's daughter. She closed her eyes and the picture of a chubby baby swam before her; a baby laughing as Han supported her stocky, not-too-secure legs on his lap, talking nonsense to her as she giggled and waved her arms around.

She couldn't give that up, especially when she knew that Han might never come back to play out that scenario. She just couldn't lose his child! It might be all she had left of him!

And yet, the cold edge of reality would not let her sink peacefully into this solution. The Rebellion was not finished; she could not give up all that they had sacrificed for a child. The Empire wouldn't let them rest, now. Both sides had too much to lose -- the Empire was feeling its power hold slipping as more and more systems balked at its tyranny; the Alliance had gained too much ground, had lost too many freedom fighters to back down now. No, they were irrevocably committed, and Leia Organa was the rallying point of that Rebellion, the symbol of martyred Alderaan, the defiant Lady of the Alliance. She was in it until the end.

Still, the vision of Han's face stayed in her mind, the intensity and emotion on his face the last time she had seen it, as he was lowered into the carbon-freezing chamber. He didn't know that their brief interlude of love had resulted in a child. Leia's eyes softened in introspection as she again pictured Han cradling his first-born tenderly in his strong arms, his face alight with wonder. No, she couldn't lose that. She had to do all she could to make that hope a reality.

There had to be an alternative. If she could find a safe planet, a safe house where she could foster the child … that was a possibility. But could she get through the rest of the pregnancy safely? Things were particularly bad for the Rebellion right now. The Empire's counterattack had been in earnest; the Rebels were scattered. They were only beginning to regroup at the rendezvous point outside the galactic rim. Ships were still limping in. They had no permanent base, though scouts were surveying several possible planets -- outside the Empire's close scrutiny, but close enough to be within striking distance.

And they had lost so many people and ships in the escape from Hoth! The Imperial Starfleet had deployed and tracked the fleeing transports across the galaxy, blasting many into radioactive dust.

Leia bowed her head in sorrow at the thought. So many ... she couldn't afford to be incapacitated with a pregnancy. The Rebellion needed her more than ever, now. Rieeken was right, damn him!

There was a way, she knew, to transplant a fetus to a surrogate womb and nurture it there. The technique had grown out of clone research, but was available only on the most advanced Imperial worlds. There was no way that the Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan could stroll into an Imperial med center and request the procedure in order to save the child of two wanted revolutionists, so that the mother could return unhampered to her efforts to overthrow the Empire.

But there had to be an answer. She had to make a choice. She felt that she was being torn apart by the forces pulling at her -- loyalty to the Alliance, love for Han, the desire to carry and bear his child, the pain of knowing that it wasn't really possible right now, the desperate lifelines just out of her reach, of giving up the baby to a surrogate and then fostering her somewhere safe.

Duty and love, realism and hope warred back and forth in her for what seemed like a long time. Far into the night, she sat cross-legged on her rumpled bed, then at last, knew what she would do.

_to be continued…_

**Author's Note:**

> There is a sequel to this story which I will publish here as soon as I find it! It was printed in a later issue of "Far Realms" but I have not located that zine at the moment. Stay tuned!


End file.
